The Ironwood Collection of Alpha Moves (8 page)

And that's just women, who are a slim majority of the electorate and therefore invaluable.  For men, he provides a balance of Alpha-Beta presentations, always tinting his rhetoric with skillful use of language that balances nuances of tone with semantic content to devastating effect. 

The male perception of
him as father figure is
powerful
, even if you disagree with his politics
. 
Detractors have to resort to racist or fascist/communist stereotypes because he’s just not as lampoonable as, say, Bill or W. 

His very public fathering of his daughters sends a potent message of "Handling His Business" to men who crave examples of good fathering without emasculation.  His daughters reflect well on him.  Compared to the antics of the Bush girls, the Obama girls' respectable behavior and sincere respect for their father lends incredible subtextual power to his perception among men.

You may see his verbal banter as Beta, but then you're missing the point.  By not publicly airing his marital grievances with his wife, he sends the message that he is a gentleman in his personal affairs, and that adds points to both genders' perceptions.  The very clear body language that they display around each other may be coached, but it is effective.  There have been very few occasions in which they appeared in public where there was any subtextual sign of tension between them.  She has an open and sincere affection and admiration for him, which translates to even further esteem amongst men.  The way he dresses (also carefully scripted) sends a confident, casual vibe regardless of the situation.  The man looks good in well-made clothes, and he uses this to his benefit.

And he watches his negatives, too, just like any good Alpha.  He's careful about who he pisses off, and more importantly he's careful about how he pisses them off.  Even the vitriol can be traced to specific memes floated around the right wing blogosphere that his people have coaxed and nurtured through sockpuppets. 

Since you are judged as much by your enemies as your friends, Obama has taken care to use his very vocal foes as a successful foil for policy initiatives.  While the Right sees the Tea Party as righteous fury from the public directed towards an unpopular president, the rest of the country views their increasingly wild and silly reactions to policy and rhetoric as petty and extreme.  Obama has used that fact effectively.

This is a skillful Alpha move on two levels, because a) extreme minorities don't win popular elections without stealing them and b) the GOP primary model gives these extremists a larger-than-proportional influence over the final selection of the Republican candidate.  When you can help pick the man you're going to run against, you've got half the election in the bag.  That's an Alpha move.

And if you've got a higher perceived Sex Rank than most of the GOP field combined, you've got most of the rest of it.  Based on Sex Rank alone, the only two candidates who have a prayer against Obama are Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman, and neither one of them are doing well enough amongst their own people to take the nomination.

Romney is pretty, but reminds women of their pompous ex-husbands -- he comes off as a tool, demographically.  Gingrich?  Old, unfaithful, old, wrinkled and old.  He appeals to the WWII generation that's nearly died off at this point, and a few Gen Xers who remember the Contract With America as a key moment in their political lives.  But his Sex Rank is low, low, low.  he even alienates his allies.  By contrast, Obama took on his biggest in-house opponent and got her to work for him -- Alpha move.

Bachman?  She's "office hot", but she doesn't hold a candle to Palin's sex appeal, and when she opens her mouth she sounds like your batshit crazy sister-in-law.  Ron Paul could actually give Obama a challenge, leveraging his grandfatherly, folksy image to improve his Sex Rank with the Silverback buff, but in the general election his extreme policies and the lackluster support of his party would torpedo him in the general election.

Just consider the anger you can feel in some of the comments. Feel it. Some people hate Obama with a burning passion.  But you don't waste that kind of energy on an ineffectual Beta.  Anyone who can arouse that level of emotion is Alpha, pure and simple.  If you're seeing more Beta, or any other states, then that's because the POTUS
wants
you to see it.  And he is fooling you by effectively manipulating your perceptions.  You might hate him, but you're
giving him attention,
and that gives him a bonus to his Sex Rank whether you like him or not.

My call in the general election?  Obama over the unnamed GOP candidate (probably Gingrich or Romney) by at least 6 points.
[EDIT: Okay, I would have lost on the points, but I stand by my prediction]
And that's just looking at adjusted Sex Rank.  You throw in the big campaign warchest and intact election machine left over from the last election, and Obama 2.0 is going to mangle whoever runs against him.  Just sayin'.

Alpha Move: Make the Bed

No, really.

Mrs. Ironwood, in spite of many other wonderful virtues, tends to be a slob.  She's not disgusting or anything, but she's firmly in the "why make a bed if you're just going to un-make it later, anyway?" school of thought.  For years I didn't mind too much -- I'm a slob myself, and I've never been particularly fastidious.

But then it occurred to me that I was disrespecting my own art.  The bedroom, for any married couple, is a place of special magic and reverence.  That's where we spend our most intimate times.  When I started on this journey, one of the first things I did was start making the bed.

Mrs. Ironwood didn't realize I was manning-up, specifically, at the time.  She just noticed that when she got out of bed in the morning it was made up by the time she got back, prohibiting her from sliding back in, going back to sleep, making herself late and inconveniencing me in the process.  The first time it happened she thought it was nice.  The second time, she didn't comment.  The third time she complained that she wasn't done with it yet.

"It's after seven," I replied.  "Adults are up and getting ready for work now."  She got up.

By the fifth or sixth time I did it, it was really starting to bug her.  What was bugging her more was that I wasn't explaining why I was doing it, or pointing it out so I could claim credit in typical Nice Guy fashion. 
I just did it.  Every day.
  And that
bugged
her.

Finally, after about a week, she broke.

"How come you're making the bed all the time, now?"

I spoke with quiet confidence. 
"Because it's where I sleep, and it's where I screw.  When you walk by this bed, when you see this bed, you're going to see that it's made up, and you're going to know that I made it, and you're going to remember that this is where we sleep and where we screw, and that it is prepared and ready-to-go
for that purpose.
  It is not a desk, it is not a dinner table, it is a
bed,
and we're going to treat it properly."

She didn't say anything to that, which was telling.
When a woman doesn’t have a prepared verbal response at hand, you’ve made her think.

She watched me make it a few more days, always first thing in the morning, always right after she woke up.  She even commented on how virile I looked shaking the sheets and comfort
er
out (hey, it's not wrestling a sabertoothed tiger, but you do what you can).  More importantly, I looked
confidant.
  I was making my bed.
In preparation for sex.
  And she knew it.

There's an art to turning a fundamentally Beta activity (making the bed) into an Alpha move (preparing the arena for combat).  And as the debate grows about whether or not you should inform your wife of your developing game, and how much, I tend to fall on the side of obfuscation for greatest effectiveness.

But there's something to laying it out there for her: your expectations, your desires, your commitment to seeing them through, and her inclusion in the process, that builds a confidence that's pure Alpha.  You're stating your intentions on no uncertain terms. 
You're claiming your territory,
defining your domain, preparing for action . . . and she knows it.  Calling it to her attention means that every time she sees the made bed, she has a good shot at the tingle, and that's never a bad thing.

Oh, two weeks after I started?  I came out of the bedroom and found
she'd
made the bed
, for the first time in years
.  While ostensibly it was
the exact same action
, from her
in this context
it was a submissive move in response to my dominance.  Subtle, but unmistakable.  An appeal to her sense of femininity and her desire for order, and a fulfillment of her desire to be led within the scope of the relationship.

And if nothing else, I got her to make the damn bed.
  Priceless.

Alpha Move: Initiate Sex. A
L
ot
.

Just how often should a dude initiate sex in his marriage/relationship?

Actually, it's pretty fundamental to
Married
Game.  Perhaps one of the most important aspects.  But let's start with the initial question of whether or not
you
should initiate or wait for
her
to initiate.

It'
s interesting, once you get the Red Pill
down, just who is "initiating" becomes cloudy.
  And eventually unimportant.  But back to the beginning.

Athol's point about female sexuality being responsive to male sexuality is
dead on
, and that's a
basic
foundation of Game Theory.  Especially within a marriage or
LTR
, once you understand this point instinctively you become far more aware of the subtleties leading up to actual initiation. 

O
nce you do understand it, and your wife begins
sexually
reacting to you more regularly, then patterns evolve in which SHE will let you know that she's interested in
you
initiating sex through some small symbolic gesture, phrase or mannerism.  It might be as mild as a playful dig or discussing someone at work's sex life,
but if you carefully observe her behavior then you'll start to pick up on these cues.